


All In White

by crocatta



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: DarkOne!Emma, F/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 17:06:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4067809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocatta/pseuds/crocatta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Storybrooke has lost its protector.  Those left to pick up the pieces find they must face their Savior, whoever--or whatever--she has become.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All In White

**Author's Note:**

> My shameless manipulation of character positionings combined with season five predictions. Enjoy!

"I love you."  
He didn't say it back. He should have said it back.  
Why didn't he say it back?  
Why didn't he say anything back? Why, when he was seeing Emma, his Emma, for the last time until gods knew when, did he remain unable to speak? He knew the words, and he'd known their truth since he lost her the first time, when Pan's curse stopped what might've been directly, ruthlessly in it's tracks. Yet, he said nothing. Did she even know?  
Was that why it she hesitated the first time? Did she have any doubt that his love for her was as honest and fierce as the one between her parents? As pure and protective as her love towards her son?  
She had to know. He had to tell her--he had to tell Emma that her fears of his apathy were nonsense, that he loved her more than he hated himself for not saying it sooner--  
But he had no idea how to get to her.  
He stood up off of the payment, where he didn't even realize that he'd collapsed to his knees, and picked up the dagger with him. The blade was evidence both blessed and damned; it meant that Emma was alive somewhere, but it also meant that she wasn't Emma anymore. Not the one he knew. Maybe--and this terrified him most--not even the one he loved.  
Killian cradled the dagger in his hand. It suddenly dawned on him that this is what his three-hundred years had come to: Stiltskin was as hollow as a corpse and finally getting the justice he deserved. Little more than a year ago, he would've given his life for less. He almost did, but Emma got in the way of that. She'd flipped the world on its side more drastically than any Author could. For everyone in this town--her parents, her son, her friends...  
Her friend Regina. Her friend that she sacrificed herself for. The bloody reason all of this happened in the first place--Killian wanted to go over there and finish what Regina had started--he wanted to scream, he wanted her to face the punishment she deserved, to make someone pay for the one person--the one person who deserved what she was dealt the least--seeing all of her efforts to stay good become fruitless--  
"As heroes."  
What he would do for that woman was astounding.  
He really, truly looked at Regina; he saw a person who knew their guilt, who wanted as much as he for this to never have happened. And he saw someone who loved her, who had been so afraid that he was going to lose her yet again, unwillingly let her go when she gathered herself and walked towards Killian.  
Regina was shaking when she reached for the dagger. He immediately retracted, protecting Emma's last clue. Her brow furrowed in determination, but her cracking voice betrayed her when she spoke. "Let me protect it."  
"I would die before this got into the wrong hands." The raw anger in his voice caused the queen's eyes to narrow.  
"As would I, pirate. But while you have a hook and a can-do attitude, I have magic, and that can prevent either of our deaths from happening in the first place. Can you say the same?" Regina glanced back at Robin. "Look, what she just did for me, I don't think I can ever repay. Let me carry this."  
Killian clenched his jaw and held out the dagger. He hated the way her name fit on its blade. Regina looked like she shared a similar opinion. She grabbed it with tremulous hands, carefully slipping the dagger under her arm so that she wouldn't have to see it. She almost walked away before she turned and said, "We'll find her. I swear on my life--on the happiness she just sacrificed herself for--she'll be home soon enough." With this, Regina the Evil Queen left, her hand clutching Robin's like a lifeline.  
He heard a muffled whimper to the side of him. It belonged to Mary Margaret, who grasped the spot where her daughter once stood. David was huddled around her. His eyes were red and puffy when he looked at Killian for the stability that he drafted to his wife. For the first time in his relationship with the royals, they expected him to be there, and they had to need him when he felt disconnected from them most. "Emma..." Saying her name only caused him sorrow. "She's somewhere. I'm going after her. And I will find her, and I'll bring her home. I swear to that." He didn't like repeating Regina--he didn't trust her like Emma did, so her words did nothing for him. Killian imagined this was same situation for the Charmings.  
Mary Margaret smiled softly through her tears at the words that so echoed David's. "I want my daughter back, Hook. But not as the Dark One. I want Emma back."  
"Then we find a way to break the curse. The Apprentice--before he died, he told us the Sorcerer's name. It's not much to go on, but it's better than nothing."  
David looked hopeful. "What is it?"  
"Merlin."  
The prince rubbed soothing circles on his wife's back, comforting her with quiet cacophony of: "We find Merlin, we get Emma." Something told Killian, though, that David spoke to instill the words in his own mind. It was worse enough that Killian lied to them about his confidence--David was lying to himself, too.  
"I'm going to the Cr--Gold's shop," Killian said. As slimy as that man was, he couldn't be the Crocodile anymore. "I'll tell Belle what's happened, and I'll get her to open the library. Don't expect to see me again tonight." Or the next morning. No one needed to see him, so they wouldn't.  
David nodded. "Our place is always free if you need it. I'll leave the door unlocked if you want to stop by."  
Killian's responding, tight-lipped smile didn't meet his eyes. "Thanks, mate."  
Mary Margaret pulled herself up, and she and David headed in the direction of their loft.  
He was the only one left behind.  
And it was only now that he truly let himself grieve.  
\------------------------------------------------  
"So Emma's the Dark One?"  
Henry took it like he took everything: with a healthy dose of impossible hope. His idolization of his mother increased tenfold when Regina told him how Emma saved her. "Yes."  
"So we find her and break the curse. True Love's Kiss breaks any curse, right?"  
"I don't think it'll be that simple, Henry."  
"Look, Mom, she saved me once with True Love's Kiss. I can save her."  
"Henry--"  
"I can try." He furrowed his brow and thought. "Can we at least find her? We don't have to see her just yet. Gold has a globe thing he used to find my dad. Maybe we can use that to find Emma."  
He was so earnest with a demand so simple that Regina couldn't refuse him. "Okay. We'll talk to Belle in the morning. We've all had a rough night, but she's had it harder than most."  
\------------------------------------------------  
Belle was devastated when Killian told her about Emma. She went on and on about how it was her fault for asking for their help, how she shouldn't have had the Apprentice release the Darkness. Killian stopped her, finally, and explained that if she hadn't done any of those things, Gold would have been nothing but the Crocodile, and Emma would've taken the burden upon herself to kill him anyway to prevent greater loss of life. Belle let him into the library, but returned to care for her comatose husband. He stayed there for hours upon hours until the point of the night when day had not yet come, but the night had run out of blackness with which to paint the sky. It was then whence he decided--after useless, useless research and an empty flask--that he needed to be with Emma. Or, at least, with what she left behind.  
It was stupid of him to assume that he'd be able to sneak into the loft unnoticed. Of course one of the royals would be up (they had a newborn and just lost their first child again, for gods' sake), and thank the gods it was David, who already poured himself straight scotch. More than one glass, it looked like.  
David looked genuinely pleased to see Killian. "Hey, man. I'm glad you decided to drag your soggy ass here," he said, his words slurred.  
"Where else would I be?" Killian plopped down at the counter next to him, probably just as tipsy.  
"At the library going out of your mind to find my daughter. Or starving in the woods because you're stupid enough to just go after her blind."  
"Already lost a hand, mate. I don't think I can afford to subtract my sight as well, not when there's always something around the corner waiting to get this damn family."  
David put his head in his hands. "God, I really did think you were stupid enough to look for her. It's best Regina took the dagger. I don't trust you with it. Put enough rum in your system and I don't doubt that you'd try and summon her." Killian cocked his head in defense. "And I only say that because that's exactly what I would do if it were Snow, but believe it or not, pirate, I actually worry about you."  
Killian looked at his hand and smirked. "I knew I was winning you over."  
"Shut up. The point is..." He trailed off to finish off his glass. "The point is I'm scared that losing Emma again will break Snow, and we've got another kid, an infant, to raise, on top of my daughter--who I've failed yet again--being missing and..." The prince sighed, not wanting to think of what happened to Emma. "Don't do anything stupid. I've got too many people to worry about right now, but I'd still like to keep everyone in that category alive, okay?"  
Killian was uncomfortable with moments of extreme honesty. He couldn't make a joke or sarcastic remark, not now, not when everything that stabilized the town had fallen apart, and he couldn't pretend to ignore the gravity of David's confession, either. He settled with, "Okay," hoping to gods that David understood that Killian appreciated exactly what he had said.  
David clapped Killian on the shoulder and poured him a glass.  
"Never would've pegged you for a scotch type," Killian remarked.  
"I'm normally a wine guy, but my life's so fucked up that I keep a bottle of the strong stuff around," David said as he topped off his own glass, "Just for rainy days."  
"Well, your majesty, it is quite the tempest out there."  
"I can toast to that."  
The clink of the glass echoed through the silent loft like thunder.  
\------------------------------------------------  
There was a flash.  
Then there was darkness.  
Then she was in the woods.  
The Enchanted Forest? No--maybe. She didn't see signs of Storybrooke anywhere, and--fuck it, it didn't matter. She could be anywhere, but it was cold against her suddenly coarse skin--and it was raining and God, she needed shelter--  
She jumped when the trees surrounding her from a 50 yard radius rocketed from their roots, cleaving themselves in the air and falling back as hardened bricks of black embedded with fool's gold. The stones layered themselves and continued building until her ceiling was high enough to be the sky. The last of the harvested rocks crafted themselves to form a heavily fortified gateway, and Emma smiled, her glittering, reptile-esque skin stretching to accommodate her face as she walked into her fortress of obsidian.  
Completely alone.  
At last.


End file.
